Joplin KOA, Joplin
Wednesday, 1 April 2020
On the road
Surprisingly, I don't have a current map of Missouri so can't show the route I took today. If you have a map to follow along on, then what I did was go straight north from Harrison, AR, through Branson, MO, to just east of Nixa, then west from there to Joplin.
As I went north through Branson, it was clear that I was driving through the Ozark Mountains - the roads were very steep and quite clearly carved out of mountains. I came to a graduated series of hills where I could see the top of the 3rd hill ahead as the road descended, then rose, several times before we got there. I thought about taking a photo or video of it but wanted both hands to hang onto the steering wheel - there wasn't a shoulder, there was a lot of other traffic and a very stiff breeze, and the road wasn't sheltered from any of it. So yes, 2 hands.
At Saddlebrooke I passed a small waterfall that had once been a mountain stream across a hill. Then that hill got chopped apart to let the highway come through, so now the mountain stream doesn't meander over the hill but instead rises to the top and then just spills itself straight down over the edge of the cut.
Near Branson, I saw a sign for the National Tiger Sanctuary, which I'd never heard of. They say they're a 501(c)3 that's dedicated to rescuing and providing permanent homes to tigers and other big cats, and to promoting environmental education and awareness.
On a pickup truck, I saw a bumper sticker that said:
"Rite is still rite
Even when no one is doing it
Wrong is still wrong"
(spelling as in the original)
I saw a sign for Lambert's Cafe with "Throwed Rolls." That sounded really familiar to me, so I looked it up and found I'd run across it in Alabama too. There's a second one in Ozark, MO.
I turned west to pass through Nixa because that's the (fictional) hometown of David Webb, aka Jason Bourne. What I found was a modern city hall and an incredible string of national chain stores and franchises along the road. Since it has 19,000 residents, I'm guessing there's a real town on one side of the road or other, I just didn't see it.
I saw acres of solar array not too far out of town.
The country I was driving through reminded me of West Virginia. I recognize the Ozarks aren't in the same league with the Appalachians, but that's still what it made me think of. Thank goodness West Virginia got me used to driving in mountainous terrain because otherwise, today would have been much harder on me.
I passed through a town called Clever.
Just outside of town I passed a street named That Place, with the next one named Nice Place.
All day I passed cows, hay in bales in fields, green fields, many small groups of houses, with small towns of 2,500 or fewer here and there. I saw huge fields of purple wildflowers.
In one of those small towns, Marionville (est. 1854), I passed Herndon Orchard with a faded picture of a piece of fruit that might have been a peach. On the other hand, Marionville hosts an annual Apple Fest in September.
I saw a sign advertising Hog Tide Barbecue.
I saw another sign advertising (I swear) Christ-Powered Construction, with a drawing of a person with a halo - presumably Christ though not looking like any picture of Jesus I've ever seen - looking down at some building plans drawn on papers he was holding. (I'm not making this up.)
The town of Monett, pop. 8,873, has a very fancy new hospital under construction. It's also the home of Big Baldy Bac [sic] Woods Texas Style Barbecue (whatever that is).
According to the trees I'm passing, the amount of wind around isn't any big deal. According to me, trying to drive in it, the amount of wind is exceedingly difficult to drive in. When semis go by, I have to grip the steering wheel with both hands. Once, the backwash from a semi was so strong it actually stopped us for half a second. Very scary. And very hard to drive in.
The town of Granby, pop. 2,134 and founded in 1850, calls itself the Oldest Mining Town in the Southwest. (Presumably meaning southwest Missouri, because nobody would describe Missouri as being in the southwest US.)
Tree blooms aren't as far along up here as in Arkansas - redbuds seem to be just starting, the trees with the beautiful white blooms are only about halfway changed to green leaves, and most trees are still bare or are just starting to show green buds of leaves.
I saw a couple of official highway signs that read, "Road Rage Gives You Wrinkles." (I'm not making this up either. But I'm beginning to feel like Dave Barry, saying that so often.)
I passed the turn for the George Washington Carver National Monument and then found myself driving on the George Washington Carver Memorial Highway. These memorials are here because he was born in Diamond, a small town about halfway between the monument and the highway.
I'd intended to go to the Joplin State Welcome Center to pick up a map and tourist information. But I had the foresight to call ahead, and I'd found out all state welcome centers are closed due to the virus, and lots of local ones as well. And the AAA offices are closed. So not having anything better to do, I decided to go straight to the campground, where they had plenty of vacant spaces.
My decision
Not only had I called ahead about the welcome center, but I also checked on recycling locations. The official website in Springfield, MO, says their center is closed "in an effort to control the spread of COVID-19 and in accordance with the recent ordinance prohibiting gatherings of 10 or more." The official website in Joplin says they're closed "in compliance with the President's Coronavirus Guidelines for America." And the official website in Branson says simply that their recycling center is closed.
This doesn't make sense to me. I've gone to recycling centers in every state I've been in and have never seen more than 10 people there at a time. Perhaps when they claim they're preventing large gatherings they're including employees, but that's not what they're saying and at most of the drop-off locations I've seen, there's no staff present at all. If they're still providing home pickup of recycling materials (and they are), then the problem seems to be that they think average citizens will flock to recycle things, or that we can't count to 10 on our fingers. Infuriating.
But since it took me 5 hours to drive from Harrison to Joplin, and since the scenery was of the sort I've seen before (though it was lovely and I enjoyed it), I needed to occupy my mind. And what finally penetrated my little pea brain is that I've been selfish and stupid and stubborn, all in one fell swoop.
Selfish because, although I continue to show none of the symptoms of the virus and am fairly careful about my interactions with others, I could still be an asymptomatic carrier and unwittingly infect someone else.
Stupid because others could be unwitting carriers who infect me or idiots who still believe this virus is overblown and not their problem in any case, and as a result be even more dangerous than the unwitting carrier.
And stubborn because I was acting like I had to adhere to my travel plans in the teeth of a global pandemic, which isn't something I could foresee 2 years ago when I started this trip. And even if I stubbornly tried to keep going, I'd be wasting much of my time. Almost all I'd be able to see of a state is Nature. Which is great and one of the reasons I wanted to make the trip - to see what this country looks like. But with most government campgrounds and other facilities closed for at least the rest of this month, I'd have a hard time finding a place to stay, an impossible time to visit museums, and even a difficult time finding supplies. Where's the point in that, I asked myself.
So when I got to the campground, I called Anna to see if she still felt okay about that invitation they'd extended me to come stay. She said sure, come on down (or words to that effect), and I decided I'd go straight to Dallas tomorrow.
I couldn't help but think of that quote: "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." (I had to look it up.) It's from one of Robert Frost's gems, "The Death of the Hired Man." If you want to reread it, here's a link. https://www.bartleby.com/frost
In my case, I'm very lucky to have family that volunteer to take me in, rather than do it grudgingly. An act of love, rather than charity. (Those 2 words are often used interchangeably, but I think this demonstrates the difference between them.)
So I decided to put my trip on hold, to postpone April in Missouri and pick it up later. I'm hoping April will see the country over the hump and I can restart with May in Iowa. Though I hear the governors of both Missouri and Iowa (and North and South Dakota and Nebraska, for that matter) haven't yet agreed to declare statewide stay-at-home orders. Since those were all my next states (minus Minnesota, whose governor is being more sensible), I'll have to play this by ear.
Google told me I could drive from Joplin to Dallas in 5 hours, 48 minutes, and that's what I'll do tomorrow. It makes more sense to shelter in place with people who understand the purpose of it, than in campgrounds with at least some who don't.
No comments:
Post a Comment